


When My Time is Up, Have I Done Enough...

by TheMadHatress13



Series: Life Doesn't Discriminate Between the Sinners and the Saints [4]
Category: Captain America- civil war, Iron Man (Movies), MCU, Marvel- Infinity War, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hurt Some Comfort, Sort Of, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark deserves better 2k18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:59:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadHatress13/pseuds/TheMadHatress13
Summary: A look at Tony starting from the Avengers, and ending with the end of History Has it's Eyes on You, though you don't need to read that.





	When My Time is Up, Have I Done Enough...

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Guess who's back! So this is just a little thing I put together because I really wanted to get something out there tonight, so I just sorta started writing and went with it. This is a bit of a character study thing about Tony starting with the Avengers Initiative, and ending with History Has it's Eyes on You, which is why it's listed as part of the series.  
> I plan to start work on the final installment of the series tomorrow, so please let me know if you have any ideas you'd like me to try and add it!

The Avengers Initiative. What a dream that S.H.I.E.L.D had thought up. Tony sometimes wondered how long Coulson had wanted to drag him into it. If it was the only reason that S.H.I.E.L.D had resurrected Steve. Hell, maybe it was why they’d let Clint spare Natasha. Knowing them, probably.  
That first mission with all of them really had been something. That’s what Tony would here people say whenever they recounted the events of the New York invasion. Yeah, it sure was something. Something out of nightmares. It had been that first mission that had forced Tony to take on whole new perspectives that he would much rather have avoided, and forced his to look an untimely death square in the face. He still remembered seeing the ship on the other side of that portal. Still remembered the vast expanse of unfamiliar stars and strange planets not on any Earthen astronomers map. He had survived though, and so had the rest of the group.  
It wasn’t until he had returned to his now ruined tower that Tony really thought over what had occured within the past week. Really looked at the desolation that surrounded the city. He began skipping news updates, not wanting to hear how quickly the death toll grew and how large the missing persons list had become. Didn't want to want to see the pain and sorrow that surrounded everything in what was once the greatest city in the world.  
Tony did what he could, helping to remove the alien tech and cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D. He stayed generally in touch with the other Avengers and rather enjoyed his work with Bruce. Slowly people began to go back to normal. Work resumed and buildings and roads were fixed. People resumed walking to the bus station, and skateboarding down the city blocks. Businesses reopened and schools resumed once more. Everything was as it was before the invasion. Not for Tony, though. For Tony everything was different. Every day felt like his last. Every day was a fight to make sure that he did what he needed to. HIs suits were being updated at shocking speeds, and he rarely left his workspace.  
He designed suits that were programed to answer to the Avengers and assist them on missions just in case there was ever a time he didn’t make it back and another crisis struck. He sent up a satellite to make sure that no other alien attacks were coming, and updated that almost weekend as well. Everything had to be perfect, he decided. Because he could not fail Earth. He could not fail the Avengers. 

A human life was quite small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It was a fact that Tony had never really thought to consider before the invasion. After, though, after it was all he thought about. He had so little time to try and prepare the Earth for the next big disaster. So little time.  
The battle of New York was still fresh in Tony’s mind when the explosions began, and PTSD only worsened as he went after the Mandarin, and watched as Pepper fell into vicious flames. Her survival was a miracle, but that didn’t stop both of them from waking up screaming. These things only fueled Tony’s need to improve the world that he’d been given. To try and make it a place where the New York invasion could never be repeated, and where people didn’t need to watch their loved ones fall to their burning deaths. It was this need that lead him to recruit Bruce’s help for Ultron.  
Ultron had been meant to be something to save people. Something to keep Earth safe long after Tony and the other Avengers were gone, because someday they would be. Besides Thor, they were all very mortal. Even Thor would fade away someday, and he was in Asgard most of the time anyway. Ultron was supposed to be permanent. A hero that would protect Earth and never leave it undefended and as helpless as it had been during the invasion of New York.  
When Ultron turned on the Avengers, Tony had felt nothing but a numb buzzing and fear beating to the rhythm of his heart. He had failed, and that failure could cost them millions of lives. He and the Avengers ran across the world in a mad search for the missing superbot, and though they never said it, Tony could tell they were all blaming him for their current predicament. He hardly blamed them; he was thinking the same exact thing.  
Wanda and Pietro were an obstacle that none of the Avengers had expected, least of all Tony. He couldn’t understand why any human would work with Ultron until he heard about their past. About his missile. About how they had been stuck for three days waiting for a bomb with his name on it to go off.  
Tony found that he could not hate the twins for joining Ultron, or fighting against him.

Vision had been a risk. Even Tony didn’t think it was a good idea, but there was no other option. At least if Vision went bad then the end would be quicker. Vision didn’t go bad though, and Tony would have cried with relief. He had succeeded. Earth had a new mightiest defender. One who would hopefully not be going anywhere for a long time.  
The defeat of Ultron was ar from joyous. The screams of children pounded away in Tony’s head like hammers, and Wanda’s broken expression when she saw the body of her brother was almost too much to bear. Hate mail arrived at the tower nearly everyday, though Pepper never allowed him to see any of it. He knew it was there though.  
It was around this point that Ross began popping up, calling for more control over the Avengers. ‘A tighter leash’ he’d said. Tony could live with that. There was no official proposal made, but it was only a matter of time Tony guessed. He was right. Oh boy, was he right. 

It had been an accident. Tony knew Wanda hadn’t meant for the bomb to explode in the building, but the public wasn’t satisfied with a ‘sorry, our mistake’. The only thing Tony could do to keep her safe was to try and keep her housebound until everything was sorted. Given that the government didn’t even see her as human was not helping.  
Of course there was also the entire thing with Steve and his fugitive friend Bucky who he kept insisting was innocent even though they UN had footage of his causing an explosion. Tony had no clue what he was supposed to do about that, but he’d have to figure out something. He felt numb as the teams were split. Team Cap, or Team Ironman. The Avengers were torn down the middle. It was at that point that he decided he needed some more man power, and he knew just were to look. Queens.  
Peter wasn’t exactly the strong backup that Tony needed, but he would do. His over excitable attitude was a slight mood lifter, if only by a little. He had the new spiderman suit done for the kid in record time, and was already working on an AI system and hundreds of different web configurations, including a few he hoped would never be put to use.  
When the real fighting began it felt unreal somehow, as if it were only a very vivid dream or a virtual reality headset. He hurt friends, injured past allies, and broke bonds that would probably never be fully mended again. It was all a blur until a yell echoed over the com systems, and Rhodey began spiraling downwards towards Earth.  
Tony and Sam both dived for him, for only a moment on the same team once more. Tony urged his suit to go faster, putting more power into the gloves and boots than he ever had before. The ground was expanding before them and Tony felt his heart stutter as Rhodey crashed down with a horrifying crash. Medics were coming according to F.R.I.D.A.Y, but it mattered little to Tony. All that mattered was that Rhodey would probably never walk again because of an injury he had sustained in the suit that Tony had made for him. In the suit that had had a fatal flaw.  
Tony added a parachute to every suit in his workshop, putting one in Peter’s as well before the kid returned to Queens.  
If he was being honest, Tony remembered very little about what happened in Syberia. Only pain, betrayal, and a lot of punching. The one thing he remembered clear as a cloudless sky though, was the sight of Steve dropping his shield in front of Tony, and turning his back on him. Steve had left him, not caring weather he got away or froze.  
Tony made new legs for Rhodey. He updated them constantly, and made him an entirely new suit as well. This one was equipped with multiple parachutes, and extra, lightweight armor. He updated the materials of everyone left, and made sure that Happy checked in on the kid every so often. He wasn’t to worried about Peter though, as he was still in school. How much trouble could he possibly get himself into?

The answer was a lot. After Tony had called Peter only to hear what sounded like a boat horn and been hung up on, he immediately started a scan of the city. It was in a blind panic that he few towards the damaged ship just in time to see Peter web it together only to have the stronger material snap.  
The panic turned to rage as he quickly repaired the ship, and flew up to meet the kid on the roof of a building. No amount of puppy eyes would be able to get Peter out of this one.  
He hadn’t originally planned to take away the suit. It had just sort of happened. He told himself it was for the best. That it was safer for Peter that way. That didn’t stop him from working on upgrades for it and creating what he called the ‘iron spider suit’. He didn’t hear from Peter for a while. Not until the night everything went to Hell.  
He found out about Peter’s fight with the Vulture on the plane from Happy, who called late at night yelling about a fire at a amusement park, and Tony’s plane in ruins. The moment he heard about the Vulture being found with a note for the police, he knew who had stopped the man. Peter Parker.  
Peter arrived at the Avenger’s compound his usual excitable self, a geeky t-shirt with a science pun on and everything. Tony could see a slight shadow behind his eyes though, and knew he’d have to follow up on it at some point. He knew he hadn’t gotten the whole story about had happened with the Vulture.  
While Peter might have turned down Tony’s offer to become an Avenger, Tony made a point of checking up on him a bit more than he previously had. It was through these that he met Ned, MJ, and eventually Mindy Zafai. It was also how he discovered that Peter, hyper, happy, fifteen year old Peter, was suffering from similar trauma related issues to Tony.  
Tony mentally kicked himself for taking away the suit that day by the ferri. He should have known it would do little to stop the kid from patrolling and going after the Vulture. It would just make it harder for Tony to make sure he didn’t do anything to dangerous.  
He spent the next week making updates to the iron spider suit. 

It had been years since the New York invasion, and Tony thought that maybe, just maybe he might have peace. For the past few nights he’d dreamed of random things, not ruble and death. One night he even dreamed he and Pepper had a son. They were in the middle of quite an interesting conversation about that exact dream when the man Tony would come to know as Dr. Strange emerged from a giant orange halo and demanded Tony’s help, Bruce Banner at his side.  
Tony was told how the man behind the invasion was coming for Earth. How he’d killed Loki, and how he was now the strongest being in the galaxy. Tony felt the world crumble, and he found himself leaning heavily on a weird pot thing. He tried to stretch asa not to seem to suspicious, but was soon slapped away by the doctor’s magic cloak.  
This was it. This was what he had been preparing for. 

“I don’t wanna go, please, sir, I don’t wanna go...I’m sorry…” Tony said nothing as he watched Peter’s ashes drift away through the air, only tried to keep his blurred and incoherent thoughts straight. They had lost. He had lost. He hadn’t prepared them enough, and the fact that Thanos had been able to snap meant that he got the mind stone from Vision. Tony’s strongest creation had fallen. 

The search through space for the infinity stones was exhausting, and Tony spent all of his free time creating new designs and trying to figure out how he’d gone wrong. How had Thanos won? Mindy had said the universe had wanted him to win. That it needed a hero. He sure didn’t feel like a hero.  
Te fight with Thanos was much easier with them all there, but Tony still felt like locking himself away for an eternity just to process all that had happened. He had to push it aside though, for he was suddenly back on Titan with a sobbing Peter in his arms. While he may not have been able to save Peter the first time, it seemed he’d been able to pull it off the second. Tony managed to sleep that night, but that would be the only one. The thought of the war being fought against his own country kept him awake along with the sound of missiles hitting Wakanda shields.  
The revelation that Ross was Hydra should have been more surprising than it was. Tony went out to fight Nemea with ever tank missile and blaster he had, making sure that everyone’s suits were fully updated and giving the rouge Avengers a few gadgets that they’d missed out on when they’d been away. The sight of Peter on the field had nearly stopped his heart, but there was nothing he could do about it except trust Bucky to keep him safe. He did not feel reassured.  
Though all survived the attack, Tony doubted that it was over. Clearly Nemea had a stronghold in the government if Ross were able to take power like that. Tony was right. 

He would end up spending the next year in the midst of a war within the country, and the government, doing anything and everything to protect Earth, and his family. He would fight, fall, and fight some more until there was nothing left and then he’d do it again. Then, at the end of it all, he would still end up sitting in his workshop making plans, many he just stored in a flash drive labeled ‘Avengers Initiative 2.0’.  
That flashdrive would end up containing plans for suits far too complex to be made with modern tech, and bots that would impress even Vision. It contained all of Tony’s research on the infinity stones, and most importantly, the stories of the original Avengers. How they won battles and lost them, and how the Civil War had destroyed them.  
Tony would spend the rest of his life creating a perfect archive of information and strategies and plans for whoever came along to protect Earth after he was gone. Still, he could only wonder… was it enough?

**Author's Note:**

> LegacyofLight.tumblr.com


End file.
